


Intercept

by TheFoolsYouSee



Series: Where No Witch Has Gone Before [1]
Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:48:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28028811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFoolsYouSee/pseuds/TheFoolsYouSee
Summary: After getting caught smuggling Romulan Ale through the Neutral Zone by a certain Federation flagship, Eda is offered a choice.A short prequel to my story 'Rancour' giving a little more of Eda's backstory in this AU.
Series: Where No Witch Has Gone Before [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2053068
Comments: 12
Kudos: 13





	Intercept

‘Body swap? Was it a body swap?’

Worf had been trying to ignore the incessant questions all the way from the brig, but the prisoner he was escorting didn’t seem at all put off by his pointed silence.

‘You’re a human or a Bolian or something, there was some kind of space-nonsense where your mind got swapped with a Klingon warrior, and now you’re stuck like this, am I right?’

The _Enterprise’s_ Security Chief couldn’t stop an irritated snort of breath from escaping his nostrils, and from the corner of his eye he saw the woman stood next to him in the turbolift grin.

‘Okay, it’s your body – which is lovely, by the way – so how about… you were taken prisoner but reluctantly befriended your captors over a series of heart-warming adventures, and now you’ve been accepted as one of the crew. Was that it?’

Worf kept his eyes ahead; there was no escape from the enclosed space they were in, and his prisoner’s attention seemed so affixed on him that he wasn’t worried about her trying anything. But she seemed to have made every effort to make their short journey through the Galaxy Class ship’s corridors as grating as possible. Every other member of her species that the Klingon had encountered had all been reserved, choosing each of their words with precision. But the woman’s long, thick grey hair and singular elongated fang wasn’t the only thing that marked her out as unique – Worf could never have imagined that a Romulan could be so _chatty_.

The turbolift doors finally slid open, and Worf had to resist the urge to shove his prisoner out of the small space they’d been briefly confined in together. He stepped forward onto the bridge, and felt some small satisfaction at how the Romulan was silenced by the sight. For a few seconds, at least.

‘Wooden banisters, cream leather seats…’ she listed. ‘It’s like a spa in here. I hope you turn up to your shift in a towel sometimes. And MORE carpet! Who’s cleaning all these miles of carpet? Is there a Chief Petty Vacuumer, or is it a rota situation?’

Commander Riker had stood from the central command chair and turned to frown questioningly at the newcomer.

‘The Captain requested that the prisoner be brought to his ready room,’ Worf explained, trying to suppress the weariness in his tone.

‘Yeah, it must be about the discovery I’ve made.’ The woman put a hand to the side of her mouth. ‘ _I think there’s a Klingon spy aboard,’_ she said in a stage whisper, pointing mock-furtively at Worf.

Riker let an amused smile play over his face, and gestured to the front corner of the bridge. Worf led the Romulan woman down the slope towards a door to the side of the main viewscreen.

‘Ha! Look at those!’ The grey-haired woman pointed like a tourist to the two seats at the front of the bridge. ‘How far back do you need your pilots to lean?’

Worf let out a tense breath and pressed a control next to the ready room’s door. A chime sounded out inside the room beyond.

‘ _Come!’_ a voice called out from behind it, and the door slid open for them to step through.

Captain Picard was sat at his desk looking over a PADD in his hand, and glanced up at them. ‘Thank you Mr. Worf, please wait outside.’

The Klingon nodded and turned to walk out of the room, glad of at least a respite from the odd Romulan’s attentions.

‘Miss you already!’ she called out to him through the closing doors, and Worf stopped, closing his eyes with an infuriated sigh. When he opened them again, he saw Riker looking over at him with a surprised and delighted grin.

‘A Romulan, Worf?’ he teased. ‘I had no idea you were becoming so open-minded.’

Although he knew the comment was being made in jest, Worf still bristled with offence at the implication and turned his head to glare at the bulkhead across the bridge.

* * *

Eda eyed the bald man sat in front of her. He had what looked like a cup of tea on the desk in front of him, and a small creature swum in a suspended bowl of water set into a plinth in front of the wall. A sofa, a painting and a couple of sculptures placed around the room completed the generally plush impression, and Eda was reminded of the offices of the Professors at the Academy where she would be repeatedly summoned for a telling off.

‘Please, sit.’ Picard gestured to one of the chairs in front of the desk.

Eda glanced at it, and cautiously complied. Poking holes in the Klingon’s stoic appearance had been fun, but this man seemed a little harder to read.

‘I was just going through some of the files from your ship,’ the human Captain said, holding up the PADD in his hand. ‘Quite bold of a smuggler to carry their own arrest warrant with them.’

‘Something to make me smile on long voyages,’ Eda shrugged.

'Yes, I can see it's something you're quite proud of based on your collection of old reprimands.' Picard looked down at the PADD again, running his finger down the list it displayed. ‘Admonishments during your time at the Romulan Naval Academy, disobeying orders, desertion… you’ve got quite a history of insubordination to-’

Eda yawned loudly, cutting the human off. ‘As flattering as your interest in my bad-girl past is, my heart’s already been stolen by Grumpus out there.’ She leant back in the chair and put her feet up on the desk. Picard eyed her heeled boots unhappily but said nothing, and Eda smiled at the confirmation of her theory – there was something he wanted from her.

‘Crossing the Neutral Zone is a serious offence,’ he said, more tersely now. ‘And then there’s the charges of smuggling contraband. You’re looking at spending a large portion of your life in a penal colony, or possibly even getting handed back to the Romulan Empire. And I don’t need to tell you what they do to deserters.’

‘Yeah, they’re a bunch of sticklers.’ Eda waved her hand dismissively, rocking her chair back and forth a little on its base. ‘So what do you want, twenty percent of the haul? Thirty? It’s you Officers creating the demand for our ale in the first place, you know.’

Picard was silent for a moment, his face impenetrable. Eda started to get the horrid feeling that she’d encountered a Starfleet Officer too honourable to be swayed even by his sort’s illegal indulgence of choice. The human leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk.

‘Do you know why I wanted you to see my bridge?’ he asked.

‘So I’d know to avoid Federation decorators?’ Eda suggested.

‘Because I wanted you to stand where my crew stood when they witnessed the atrocity that you saw too.’

Eda lowered her eyes, folding her arms against her chest. Picard waited to see if there would be any further reaction, but when all the tall woman did was stare at the floor he continued.

‘The _Enterprise’s_ scans identified the Romulan ship at the time, and the name and date corresponds to the record of you disobeying a direct order.’

‘…I tried to stop it,’ Eda said quietly.

‘Yes, that would line up with everything else here.’ Picard’s eyes went to the PADD again. ‘Most of these reprimands seem to be because you stood up to a piece of injustice or cruelty of some kind. And as you deserted the Imperial Navy, you clearly disagree with their methods.’

‘I’m not going to defect if that’s what you’re after,’ Eda said firmly, but Picard shook his head.

‘There’s a way you can help bring a kinder influence to your people. And although from what I’ve read here you did everything you could... when one lives through something like that it can ease the conscience to put your energy into something more constructive than smuggling.’

For a moment Eda wondered what event could have been in this human’s past that gave him such an insight into the guilt that had sat in her belly ever since that day. The guilt of watching helplessly as horrors unfolded in front of you, unable to break free to prevent them from happening. But the emotional openness combined with the elongating silence in the conversation started to make the Romulan itch, and she shrugged.

‘What’s the job?’ she asked.

* * *

Eda’s small freighter had just about fit in the _Enterprise’s_ shuttlebay, and she watched grimly as the Federation crew removed the crates of Romulan Ale from her cargo hold. The idea of the bottles of blue liquid ending up in the drawers of various Starfleet Admirals while her pockets remained empty made her start to reconsider the deal she’d struck, purely out of spite. But the possibility of a Romulan execution was enough to force her to keep her mouth shut as the final batch of her haul was taken away.

She looked to Worf, who had been stood close by watching her during the whole operation, and the Klingon appeared to let out a relieved sigh.

‘Your passenger is aboard,’ he confirmed. ‘You are free to go.’

‘Thank you.’ Eda curtseyed and sauntered up the ramp into her ship, pressing the control to lift it back up to cover the cargo hold.

‘ _Who says Klingons can’t be gentle lovers?_ ’ she called out loudly just as the ramp was sliding into place. She was pleased to see a couple of the _Enterprise_ crew turn in surprise and glance at Worf, who looked absolutely furious. She doubted any of them would actually believe her, but the idea of it becoming a furtively shared joke behind his back that he overhead once in a while was enough to make Eda cackle to herself.

As she came through the door into the main deck of the freighter, she glanced at the human woman sat at the central table. The passenger she’d been instructed to escort was much younger than Eda had expected, her short brown hair topping a tan-skinned face that had looked round nervously at her. The Starfleet uniform she was wearing was slightly different to the ones Eda had seen the others wear – gold shoulders over a black torso instead of the reverse.

‘Hey kid,’ Eda nodded to her a little awkwardly before continuing to the pair of pilots’ chairs at the front of the deck. Taking her seat, she started punching in the commands for launch. ‘This is Freighter _Strix_ requesting permission to depart,’ she said after pressing the comms button.

‘ _Permission granted, please depart shuttlebay,’_ a pleasant, if slightly robotic voice replied. Eda activated the thrusters to lift the freighter off the hangar floor, and propelled the vessel through the open bay doors, the forcefield shimmering as they passed through it into open space.

Eda glanced back at her passenger again, and saw the human quickly avert her eyes from where they’d been watching her.

‘The view’s better from up here,’ Eda invited.

After a couple of seconds’ hesitation, the other woman stood and came over to take the empty seat next to Eda. The Romulan watched her crane her head to try and spot the ship they were leaving behind through the cockpit window, and she brought the little ship around to bring the _Enterprise_ into full view. They flew under the wide saucer section of the Federation ship, and Eda found herself smiling as the younger woman stared up at it in wonder. Once they’d done a pass, Eda swung them round once more and brought them into warp back towards the Neutral Zone.

‘I’m Eda,’ she said. The human tensed, and Eda could tell she wasn’t sure how much she was allowed to say about herself. ‘Look, it’s gonna be a real boring trip if we can’t talk to each other,’ she pointed out.

Her passenger hesitated again before speaking. ‘Ensign Luz Noceda.’

‘Ensign, huh?’ Eda adjusted the engine output thoughtfully. ‘You seem pretty junior to be sent on a secret diplomatic mission to Romulus on your own.’

‘There’s… a reason.’

Nothing more seemed to be forthcoming, and Eda shrugged; the human would either tell her eventually or she wouldn’t. Right now Eda was just glad to be back on her own ship. Then she caught Luz staring at her ears.

‘Anything you wanna ask _me_?’ she smiled, and then blinked in surprise at the immediate barrage of questions.

‘Are you from the northern hemisphere of Romulus? Why do you have a fang, is that a subspecies thing? Do Romulans really have family names? Are there any old Klingon ships still in service in the Imperial Navy? Does the Praetor-’

‘Whoa, whoa, okay!’ Eda chuckled. ‘You really know what you’re talking about.’

Luz smiled sheepishly. ‘I like Romulan stuff.’

‘Well, you’re going to the right place.’

Eda watched the other woman’s expression change to a slightly apprehensive one. She really was very young, and Eda felt something maternal stir in her that she’d never felt before. For this child to be sent away from her own people for a reason she seemed uncomfortable talking about even beyond it being a classified mission… the word “banished” came to mind.

‘You know, I never liked the name _Strix_ ,’ Eda declared. ‘It came with the ship, but I’ve always been meaning to change it.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah, it’s too much like _strict_ , which doesn’t suit a couple of bad girls like us. And I guess this is gonna be your new home for a while.’ Eda felt a touch of warmth in her chest as Luz’s expression eased. ‘So what should we call it?’

* * *

Picard drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair a little uneasily. He still wasn’t entirely comfortable being kept in the dark about the significance of the young woman who he’d just sent away to Romulan space. The orders had come through from Starfleet Command almost as soon as he’d notified them of the smuggler they’d apprehended, and the urgency with which the transfer was arranged told him it was a matter of high importance. But he had been reassured by someone he trusted that it was necessary, and that secrets must be kept, so he had suppressed his curiosity.

‘She was very nervous,’ Counsellor Troi said from the chair next to Picard’s central one, echoing his own concerns. ‘It was like she felt she’d done something wrong, but wasn’t sure what it was.’

‘I tried contacting the XO on the _Lutrinae_ about the transfer,’ Riker added from the seat on Picard’s other side. ‘But he seemed just as in the dark as we are. He said she was a promising Officer and he fought to keep her, but he was overruled.’

Picard grunted thoughtfully. ‘I agree it’s mysterious. But some matters remain classified for good reason.’

‘Do we at least know where she’s going?’ Troi asked.

‘To a friend,’ Picard confirmed, and was glad to see his confidence reassure the empathic woman. Whatever part they had just played in this affair, it was over. Picard turned his thoughts to more immediate matters, and lifted his feet for the oncoming crewman to run their vacuum under his chair.


End file.
